AUSTRALIA PLANS NEW TACTIC IN DRUG WAR

INJECTION ROOMS PLANNED FOR USERS

MELBOURNE, Australia After 17 years in the restaurant business, Myrto
Aretakis yearned to serve her steak and seafood dishes in new surroundings.
But when she gushed to colleagues about the building for sale on Smith
Street, they were less than enthusiastic.

Aretakis fell for the Victorian facade and cozy interior. She was able to
buy the historic site for a steal because Smith Street has become, in the
past five years, an open market for heroin in this city of 3 million people.
Soon, it also could be home to one of the world's few medically supervised
heroin-injection rooms.

Sometimes, when Aretakis looks out the window and sees teenagers slipping
into the public restrooms across the street, dazed expressions on their
gaunt faces, she wonders whether the skeptics were right about moving here.
After all, no matter how carefully she observes the customers who come
through her door, the needle-disposal bins recently installed in her
restaurant's bathrooms are still filled by the end of most business days.

Some of her neighbors have resorted to putting up signs that forbid
"dealing, drug taking and nodding off." That such measures have become
necessary is why Aretakis and scores of business owners have come to view
so-called shooting galleries as the realistic way to fight the heroin trade
on Smith Street.

"I guess I don't want to walk down the street anymore and see another
druggie that's fallen down," Aretakis said, "and you can't put 20 more
police on the street and say that's going to solve the problem. They tried
that, and it didn't work."

Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, has one of the world's highest
heroin-overdose mortality rates. Shaken by a night in April 1999 that saw 22
overdoses--two of them fatal--five municipalities are preparing to open
shooting galleries.

In Switzerland, the first such operation to open--in Bern in 1986--brought a
marked decrease in overdose deaths in that country and led to a dozen more
such places, all of them in Europe.

Australia, like the United States, has long subscribed to a prohibition
policy on illegal drugs. But as the increasing availability and purity of
heroin has coincided with an alarming surge in overdoses, shooting galleries
have gone from an answer of last resort to a crucial part of Australia's new
"harm minimization" drug strategy.

John Fitzgerald, of the University of Melbourne's criminology department,
secured grant money from the Victorian Law Enforcement Drug Fund to study
the heroin problem. He believes a shift in sales locations--from drug houses
to street corners--has finally forced the public to confront the epidemic he
has seen growing for years.

"Really, the time has come to do something, and we have to do it now,"
Fitzgerald said.

The addicts who frequent shooting galleries must demonstrate a history of
drug abuse. In exchange, they receive a serene, sterile setting in which to
shoot up. Trained medical personnel are there to ensure that no one
overdoses and, when asked, they also provide information on methadone and
other ways to kick heroin.

"We're trying to take a more holistic approach," said Ian Winn, police
superintendent of Victoria, where heroin fatalities have risen to more than
300 in 1999 from 59 in 1993. "I don't think anybody tries to pretend that
injection rooms are the solution, but we may see some behavioral changes,
and that can only be good."

Last month, shortly after his campaign pledge to tackle heroin helped him
oust an otherwise popular incumbent, Victoria Premier Steve Bracks appointed
a team of drug experts to implement heroin-injection rooms. First, the
thorny issue of where to put them must be settled. Then a 12-month to
18-month trial run could begin, perhaps later this year.

"The fact is that the traditional approach to drug abuse is not working,"
Bracks said. "We cannot continue to put the drugs crisis in the `too hard'
basket while so many Victorians are losing their lives."

As secretary of the Smith Street Traders Network, Aretakis is organizing
community forums to debate where their neighborhood's shooting gallery
should go.

"Everyone thinks it's a good idea as long as it's not next to them," said
Craig Mercer, head of the Melbourne Inner-City Needle Exchange. "But there's
no point putting it in an industrial area 2 kilometers away because no one's
going to use it."

Melbourne solved a similar dilemma a decade ago, after Australia legalized
prostitution, by relegating brothels to outlying areas. But Smith Street
regulars such as Peter Wortley, a heroin addict for 20 years, say that's too
far to go for a drug fix.

"They've got to get it into their system right away and stop the pain," said
Wortley, 36. "A lot of us don't really want an injection room. I can't see
using one myself. There's not much you can do. If you're going to do it,
you're going to do it, and some of them are doing it because they want to
die."

Aretakis believes that as more overdoses occur, one of her Smith Street
neighbors eventually will step up to the task.

"We're all doing what we can based on the resources we have," Aretakis said.
"But make no mistake, this is not just a drug issue. It has become a health
and social issue . . . and we will be screaming from the rooftops if we lose
the ground we've made to date."